Monthly Archives: May 2014

1.) What are some of your life achievements such as awards or championships you have gotten, or anything else that you have gotten that you don’t mind to speak of?

Some of my life achievements include having 2 Bachelor’s degrees, both in Education, one to teach Social Studies and a second to teach Business Education. I also have a Master’s in Education with a concentration in Technology.

Recently my husband and I opened our own business in Clarion. It has been very exciting and at the same time very scary. It is a big risk to be your own employer versus being an employee. So far, I would sum it up by saying, it has been a learning experience that can be both very rewarding and very challenging.

However, in all of the things that I have achieved in life I believe that one of the greatest was having my beautiful daughter, Lauren. She is amazing!

2.) How many years have you taught at Keystone? What have you taught?

I have taught at Keystone for 12 years, during that time I have taught Multimedia Design, Accounting, Digital Photography (with Mr. Carrow), Computer Tech 7, Computer Tech 8, Business Math, Office 2000, and Keyboarding at the Elementary school.

3.) Have you always worked at Keystone? If not where else have you worked?

I have not always worked at Keystone, I spent some time substituting in the area schools after I graduated from college and then went back to get the second degree, after I graduated with the Bachelor’s in Business Education, I was hired as one of the computer teachers at Abraxas in Marienville. It is an open residential facility for court adjudicated youth owned by Cornell Corrections. I worked there for 3 years and then came to Keystone. It was quite a transition from that environment to the public school!

4.) What do you like most about your job?

I love working with technology, it is constantly changing so it does not become repetitious. There is always something new to learn and a new way to do all things in this field. I really like teaching accounting, it is one of the disciplines that I truly enjoyed learning, that could be because my start in Accounting was in high school with Mrs. Witkowski!

All of the people I work with make my career enjoyable! I could not ask to be part of a better faculty and staff. I also love working with the students, each one brings something different to the class! I enjoy seeing the students grow and change over the years. As with everything in life, some students and faculty you get to know better than others, but, each one brings something different and exciting to the classroom.

5.) What is your least favorite part of the job?

Paperwork! I hate the paperwork! I would love to just be able to teach my classes and not have to deal with all of the other “stuff”! But, then, if you asked any teacher that, they would probably say the same thing!

6.) Did you always want to be a teacher? Did you always want to teach the subject you teach now? Why?

For the most part, I have always wanted to be a teacher, even when I was little. My grandmother was an Elementary school teacher in Clarion for 32 years and I just thought that it was the coolest thing to be! However, I did not always want to be a teacher, there was a period of time when I thought that I wanted to be a lawyer. Sometimes, I still think about going back to school and pursuing that career.

I thought that I wanted to teach Social Studies when I went to college…but, after getting that degree the jobs were limited. I went back to get the Business Education certification because the skills that you learn while getting that certification are more marketable. When I went back to school and started taking the business classes, that is when I found what I truly enjoyed doing and learning.

7.) What made you want to be a teacher?

Explained above!

8.) What was your major in college?

See above

9.) How is your mood about this school year?

I am truly enjoying this school year. The classes I have this year are full of personality. That makes it nice because you have lots to look forward to throughout your day.

10.) Any advice to this year’s seniors about what is to come for them?

Well, for the seniors, I wish them luck in their pursuits. My advice to them would be to make sure that the skills they are learning are marketable in multiple career paths, if they limit themselves in today’s world they become unemployable. But, most of all, they need to choose a career that they enjoy. I have known lots of people who worked a job that they hated and it had a detrimental effect on them over the years. It is important to be happy in ALL areas of your life!

Is it just me, or do the seventh graders keep getting shorter every year?

It may not seem so at first, but given a couple years roaming the high school, you’ll begin to see the difference. Crazy or not, the adage holds true; with each new school year, it seems Keystone’s freshest arrivals continue to get smaller and smaller than the newbies of past semesters. Or maybe we upperclassmen are just getting taller (though I don’t know about you, but I’ve been stuck at five foot three since 2012).

Either way, with every passing school year, as each grade level crawls forward in the long haul to the top of the pile, it becomes more and more removed from the youngest of KHS. Those who were once rookies themselves begin to feel far distanced–taller, increasingly experienced, and supposedly more mature–from any apprentice seventh graders. Elementary school graduates seem almost a whole other species from the twelfth grade students that swag their days through the senior wing…It’s a wall. A wall of separation, risen between the young and the younger, driving division straight into the heart of high school. It’s a split that wasn’t always there, and, according to the class of 2015, it’s getting worse.

Things just aren’t the way they used to be at high school as Caleb, a junior, put it; upperclassmen live a world apart from seventh grade newbies, carrying out completely separate lives that walk a foot apart in the hall, see each other every day, and share lunch together. That are in truth one and the same, but yet are surrounded by an air of superiority that turns anyone old enough to have a driver’s license into a hostile, unapproachable giant, and anyone too young to attend prom into nothing more than just another heat mass crowding the halls.

The now spacious relationship between upperclassmen and foreign seventh graders has largely deteriorated since Caleb and other eleventh graders were in the junior high. The situation has left naive junior highers unprepared for the big leagues on Beatty Avenue, and created lumbering intimidation out of juniors and seniors, who are, in reality, the goofiest of the bunch. Caleb acknowledges this problem, and admits that it’s something that needs to change. That’s why he and another eleventh grader, Lulu, have spearheaded a movement to bring about just the kind of revisions to level the social playing field at KHS.

“It’s just an idea I had,” Lulu says about the project. “I went to Caleb because he’s good with that kind of stuff.” From there, Lulu’s brainstorm developed into a full-blown class-wide project to smooth out the bumpy migration from elementary to high school.

Coordinated entirely by students, with the occasional assistance of Mr. Warner, the seventh-grade-aid program is being established to “ease the transition from sixth to seventh grade” (according to Caleb) through creating a welcoming environment out of the high school’s hallowed, and at first horrifying, halls.

Caleb, Lulu, and any other willing current 7th-12th graders are kick-starting the movement by sending the sixth grade students at the elementary a homemade how-to video on life in secondary education. Delivered on May 6, the film will administer advice from seventh grade teachers and upperclassmen on surviving the teenaged world, while showing a view on high school “from a student’s perspective”. This will allow KHS rookies to get a glimpse of their first semester on Beatty Avenue before it even begins, minus any demented stereotypes that gossip and PG-13 chick flicks have left imprinted on the average child brain.

Step two of Caleb and Lulu’s mission is to improve the initiatives already being taken to ease the annual pilgrimage of sixth graders, such as the sixth grade orientation day and track meet.

To take place May 9 this year, orientation day offers upcoming Panthers a chance at a field trip over from the elementary school to explore and get to know KHS and its teachers before they’ve graduated. Under the leadership of a Panther Peer, the eighty or so apprentices break into groups and tour throughout the school, developing a taste of the libertarian high school lifestyle, complete with boisterous hallways, inappropriate comments, and all.

The plan is to encourage a kinder orientation atmosphere for visiting sixth graders. Rather than “look at the person leading them as an advisor, not a friend”, Caleb explained, he and Lulu hope to convince the Peer guides to appear more accepting and friendly to the students they are guiding. They want the elementary Panthers to leave their tour feeling as if they’ve created a new friendship, not as if they’ve only confirmed their anxieties. And with any luck, they’ll be just a little bit more adapted to the coming next stage of their education.

To capitalize on those relationships, Caleb, Lulu, and the other juniors will spend the second half of orientation day, the yearly sixth grade track meet, fraternizing with the high schoolers to-be, while the young uns compete in a miniature version of the varsity track and field big brother, complete with sprints, throwing, and jumps. Hopefully, then, once fall rolls around, the primary graduates will feel as if they have a few allies guarding their backs as they dive into the inevitable chaos of high school.

A turmoil which can never be totally avoided, no matter how hard Caleb, Lulu, or anyone, tries. All we can do is “prevent bullying”, “connect upperclassmen to lower”, and cross our fingers. But Lulu and Caleb are confident. “Everyone’s doing stuff [to help out],” Lulu says. Her pride in her grade is evident, and the entire junior class’s enthusiasm is unmatched. She, Caleb, and the rest of the class of 2015’s leave no doubt that seventh graders will find a quick new home awaiting them at KHS.

After all, there was never any doubt that the new seventh graders would survive, just like we all did, one way or another, but now, with Caleb and Lulu on the scene, they’ll be sure to thrive.

For answers to additional questions on seventh-grade-aid, just ask Caleb or Lulu. They’ll be happy to offer more info, or get you in on the action!

This year we have five retiring teachers: Mark Whisner, Sharon Nesta, Jerry Rembold, Shirley Runyan, and Doug Cobler.

Mark Whisner started his career with Keystone in 1981 as the Health, PE, and Driver’s Ed teacher. He has also coached football, 9th grade basketball, and track/field. We wish him the best of luck in his retirement.

Sharon Nesta is a name that many or all people should know, or at least the Mrs. Nesta version. She is a well-liked teacher at the elementary school and after years of teaching she is retiring

Jerry Rembold is also a name that should be very well known. He is both an elementary and high school teacher; he spends his mornings in the elementary school and his afternoons in the high school teaching band lessons.

Shirley Runyan is a elementary cafeteria worker. She will keep you under control, but that’s not all she can do: she cleans off your tables and helps you out. Thank you, Shirley!

Doug Cobler is one of the people who cleans up after you, otherwise known as a custodian. We owe him a big thank you for cleaning up all our messes!